BethanyInheritance: You might get tricked into Watching This (LINK)
July 29th 2008 01:42
I read several reviews on Netflix that said it was a great, moody Indie movie. So, I thought, why the heck not? I'm supposed to be finding little gems like that, aren't I?
Inheritance is a basic haunted house/possession story (depending on how you look at it). Young Abigail is caretaker for the ancient Lillian Baker, who is not only getting old but she's obviously losing her mind. She sees cracks in cups that are fine, her mother and sister (long dead) visit her at night. She speaks to them as if they are there, and generally wigs out young Abbie. Abbie sometimes neglects her beau to care for Lillian, which causes some stress in the relationship. Then Lillian dies, and leaves everything (surprisingly, especially to Lillian's money-grubbing daughter) to Abbie.
Abbie soon notices fugues- she's blanking out spots of time, whereupon she is finding herself in old lady Baker's luxurious mansion- once in the arms of Lillian's handsome and young doctor. Between Abbie's family history of schizophrenia and Abbie's conviction that no, she wasn't crazy, Lillian's possession of her slowly unwinds Abbie's life.
I have a few problems with this movie, the first being the sound balance. The dialog is extremely soft, and the music is very loud. The score itself wasn't bad, but it seemed a bit like the script had said *insert creepy music here* and the sound editor did, at full volume. It was frustrating, the whole time I kept having to adjust the sound volume.
The first part of this movie was moody and dark, and the woman who played Lillian Baker mastered the art of being both creepy and harmlessly crazy. I'd say right up until Lillian dies, the movie masters a creepy suspense. After that, the movie kind of steamrollers itself. There is almost too much plot, which really distracts from the mood. Also, the amount of time they took to establish that yes, Abbie is having weird fugues and yes, Lillian Baker is involved- that just took too long.
Whatever remaining mood was almost completely spoiled by the first confrontation scene, which involved Abbie walking across the room to talk to herself. And back, and forth. We only needed to see that once to establish what was going on, and it happened a couple of times. In fact, I don't think it needed to be shown- just seeing her move into place before she says something back would probably have given that indication. Plus, if they wanted to leave it ambiguous as to whether or not Abbie was losing her mind, indicating that she was walking back and forth was probably a bad idea.
And there was a huge inconsistency on when she could and couldn't see ghosts. She can see a little girl ghost, but not Lillian or her mother or sister? And then she can't see the little girl, but she sees Lillian, the mother and sister at the end. It's quite inconsistent on that point, and there doesn't seem to be any rule for it.
Another point against was that there weren't any rules for how Lillian took over Abbie- it was just a battle of wills, and they never really SHOWED that. Supposedly Abbie was stronger than she suspected, but Abbie never interrupts a time of possession. She never is in the middle of doing something as Lillian and then screaming "NO!" or jerking out of it. There was no tension, no struggle, no metaphorical tug-of-war. It just sort of happened.
And, honestly, a whole 30 minutes- maybe as much as 45- could have been cut out of this movie and made it much, much better. There is beauty in brevity.
All in all, it's a mediocre watch at best, predictable and quite boring, and whatever mood it might start with has vanished by the end of the movie. Unfortunate, but more a lesson in how NOT to do movies like this.
Inheritance is a basic haunted house/possession story (depending on how you look at it). Young Abigail is caretaker for the ancient Lillian Baker, who is not only getting old but she's obviously losing her mind. She sees cracks in cups that are fine, her mother and sister (long dead) visit her at night. She speaks to them as if they are there, and generally wigs out young Abbie. Abbie sometimes neglects her beau to care for Lillian, which causes some stress in the relationship. Then Lillian dies, and leaves everything (surprisingly, especially to Lillian's money-grubbing daughter) to Abbie.
Abbie soon notices fugues- she's blanking out spots of time, whereupon she is finding herself in old lady Baker's luxurious mansion- once in the arms of Lillian's handsome and young doctor. Between Abbie's family history of schizophrenia and Abbie's conviction that no, she wasn't crazy, Lillian's possession of her slowly unwinds Abbie's life.
I have a few problems with this movie, the first being the sound balance. The dialog is extremely soft, and the music is very loud. The score itself wasn't bad, but it seemed a bit like the script had said *insert creepy music here* and the sound editor did, at full volume. It was frustrating, the whole time I kept having to adjust the sound volume.
The first part of this movie was moody and dark, and the woman who played Lillian Baker mastered the art of being both creepy and harmlessly crazy. I'd say right up until Lillian dies, the movie masters a creepy suspense. After that, the movie kind of steamrollers itself. There is almost too much plot, which really distracts from the mood. Also, the amount of time they took to establish that yes, Abbie is having weird fugues and yes, Lillian Baker is involved- that just took too long.
Whatever remaining mood was almost completely spoiled by the first confrontation scene, which involved Abbie walking across the room to talk to herself. And back, and forth. We only needed to see that once to establish what was going on, and it happened a couple of times. In fact, I don't think it needed to be shown- just seeing her move into place before she says something back would probably have given that indication. Plus, if they wanted to leave it ambiguous as to whether or not Abbie was losing her mind, indicating that she was walking back and forth was probably a bad idea.
And there was a huge inconsistency on when she could and couldn't see ghosts. She can see a little girl ghost, but not Lillian or her mother or sister? And then she can't see the little girl, but she sees Lillian, the mother and sister at the end. It's quite inconsistent on that point, and there doesn't seem to be any rule for it.
Another point against was that there weren't any rules for how Lillian took over Abbie- it was just a battle of wills, and they never really SHOWED that. Supposedly Abbie was stronger than she suspected, but Abbie never interrupts a time of possession. She never is in the middle of doing something as Lillian and then screaming "NO!" or jerking out of it. There was no tension, no struggle, no metaphorical tug-of-war. It just sort of happened.
And, honestly, a whole 30 minutes- maybe as much as 45- could have been cut out of this movie and made it much, much better. There is beauty in brevity.
All in all, it's a mediocre watch at best, predictable and quite boring, and whatever mood it might start with has vanished by the end of the movie. Unfortunate, but more a lesson in how NOT to do movies like this.
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